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Friday, October 18, 2013

A tummy-warming beef stew for the adults to eat while kids are eating candy!

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites, and this recipe is one I'd love to make on the weekend so I'd have leftovers to eat for lunch of a quick dinner during the week. If you're not a slow cooker fan, there are directions at the end for making this on the stove.)

On Halloween night you know the kids aren't going to want to eat anything but candy, so why not make this slow cooker beef stew with lots of adult flavors to keep the grown-ups happy? You can start this mid morning and by dinner time it will be ready to go. If you'll be gone all day, just do the advance prep the night before, refrigerate the ingredients in a plastic container, and put the cold ingredients in the slow cooker and let it cook all day while you're out. I'd love this with a dollop of sour cream on top, but no matter how you eat it, this stew is loaded with flavor. (There are also stove-top instructions if you don't have a slow cooker.)

I realize, (and some people remind me occasionally!) that some of you don't like having to saute the meat or other ingredients before you put them in the slow cooker. I recommend doing that because I think browning the meat or onions adds flavor to slow cooker dishes, and sauteeing mushrooms removes the extra liquid that doesn't get cooked off in the slow cooker. But I don't take it personally if you ignore my instructions, and I think this will still be pretty good even if you just dump the ingredients in the slow cooker and turn it to low.

Slice 8 oz. mushrooms and chop up one small onion.

Heat a small amount of olive oil and saute the mushrooms. When they're brown and the pan is dry, add them to the slow cooker.

While the mushrooms cook trim the chuck steak into bite-sized pieces. (I trim away all the fat to follow South Beach guidelines of not more than 10% fat, and save all those fatty pieces to make homemade beef stock.)

After you remove the mushrooms, add a little more oil and saute the chopped onions; then add them to the slow cooker.

Then add a little more oil, add the pieces of beef and cook until they are well browned on all sides. Add the browned beef to the slow cooker.

De-glaze pan with one cup of homemade beef stock or beef broth, cook until slightly reduced, then add to the slow cooker.

While the beef browns slice the garlic pieces and olives, measure the capers, and chop the rosemary and parsley.

Add the can of diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, balsamic vinegar, olives, garlic slices, chopped rosemary, chopped parsley, and capers. Cook for 6-8 hours on low (or slightly longer if you prep the night before and started with ingredients that were cold.) This can also be cooked on high for 3-4 hours, but I prefer longer cooking on low for beef.

Here's how the stew looked when it had cooked all day and was ready to eat. Season with fresh ground black pepper (and a little salt if desired), and eat!

And just to amuse you, here's the original photo from 2007 when I first created this recipe!

Heat small amount of olive oil in heavy frying pan, add mushrooms and saute several minutes, until starting to brown. Add mushrooms to slow cooker. Add a little more oil, then saute diced onions about 5 minutes, or until starting to brown. Add mushrooms to slow cooker. Add a little more oil again, then add diced beef and brown well, about 10-15 minutes. Don't rush the browning step. Add beef to the slow cooker.

Add 1 cup beef stock to the pan and simmer a few minutes until slightly reduced, scraping off all browned bits, then add that stock to the slow cooker. Add diced tomatoes and juice, tomato sauce, balsamic vinegar, olives, garlic, rosemary, parsley, capers, and a little black pepper. Stir gently to combine, then put lid on Crockpot and cook 6-8 hours on low. (You could cook this 3-4 hours on high, but for a recipe with large pieces of garlic like this I prefer the low setting.) Season to taste with salt and more fresh ground black pepper and serve hot.

If you do all the advance preparation the night before and put the combined ingredient in the refrigerator overnight, this could cook as long as 10 hours in the Crockpot while you're at work. Manufacturers don't recommend putting crockery liner with prepared ingredients in the refrigerator; store in another container so contents stay cold, then put in Crockpot in the morning.

If you trim the meat well so it fits the South Beach Diet guidelines for less than 10% fat, this beef stew with low-glycemic ingredients would be suitable for any phase of the South Beach Diet.

Nutritional Information?

I chose the South Beach Diet to manage my weight partly so I wouldn't have to count calories, carbs, points, or fat grams, but if you want nutritional information for a recipe, I recommend entering the recipe into Calorie Count, which will calculate it for you.

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Posts may include links to my affiliate account at Amazon.com, and Kalyn's Kitchen earns a few cents on the dollar if readers purchase the items I recommend, so thanks for supporting my blog when you shop at Amazon!

Posts may include links to my affiliate account at Amazon.com, and this blog earns a few cents on the dollar if readers purchase the items I recommend, so thanks for supporting my blog when you shop at Amazon!

Love your blog, the beautiful design and all the great recipes! Thank you! And I'm glad you have water again. Re: fresh rosemary, I'm located in the very cold northeast and have been keeping a rosemary plant alive in a south facing window for over a year. It's almost all used up as I love it and use it faster than it grows. Having "black thumbs" I killed two previous ones in winters past, but have learned the trick is to water it generously as needed and mist it generously as well. Rosemary plants and 3' bushes are sold here in the farmers' market in the fall. Thanks again.

Kalyn, I've been hanging on to this recipe, just waiting for the right day to make it. Today, while the world outside is coating itself with ice, seemed perfect! It's in the crock-pot right now, and Steve's already bugging me about when it's going to be ready. I'm definitely looking forward to dinner!

Anonymous, don't know why we're missing it (I missed it too after you left your comment) but right after parsley it says 1 T capers. I knew there were capers! They're definitely optional though. I'm sure this would taste fine without them.

Holy WOW. I made this last evening and it was AWESOME. And I'm not an internet caps user. I used kalamata olives, and fewer of them, because they were in the fridge. I also used no sodium added tomato products, so compensated with a little spike seasoning (thank you, kalyn for tipping me off about Spike!). I also had a Costco tub of whole garlic cloves (again, thank you Kalyn), so I threw in about a cup, roughly chopped. PHENOMENAL!!! Yum, yum, yum, yum! And this morning, I weight half a pound less than yesterday--I did trim off the largest of the fat streaks in the chuck. Thank you South Beach, and thank you Kalyn!

this was GREAT. and your pictures were so helpful. i made it for a christmas party, doubling the recipe. i even added some heavy cabernet during the mushroom sauteeing phase. it was awesome. one of my guests is a chef and she loved it, too. big success. i will definitely make this again.

I just made this for the first time and LOVE it! I added a green pepper that I had in the fridge and needed to use. Also added some sage and thyme, za'tar spice (a middle eastern blenc) and a dash of worchestershire sauce. I wasn't sure what kind of olives you used so I used pitted kalamatas from trader joes. I'm on phase 2 so I ate it with some whole wheat couscous.

Just checked the cut of grass fed beef in my freezer and it's chuck! I'm thrilled because your recipe sounds incredible, and the super healthy meat deserves a great recipe ...will make this tomorrow. Thank you so much!

so glad that you revived this recipe from your archives ~ although I've made many, many of your recipes, somehow I overlooked this one. The house smelled so good while this was crockpotting away. Although I was tempted to cut back on the garlic, I decided to follow the recipe to a t and was glad I did. It was a fantastic meal! Teresa in Texas

This was so good EXCEPT a half cup of raw garlic basically ruined it. It is not necessary to put that much in. 1 or 2 cloves and saute it before you add it in. Other than that I can imagine it would be awesome. I will make it one more time without so much garlic and I am sure my professional chef husband will love it!

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